


give a little time to me

by jemmasimmmons



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Baby Fic, Babysitting, Date Night, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-02
Updated: 2016-12-02
Packaged: 2018-09-06 02:11:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8730757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jemmasimmmons/pseuds/jemmasimmmons
Summary: ‘…and there’s a bottle in the fridge-‘‘Excellent. What of?’Raising her eyes from her detailed list of babysitting instructions, complete with bullet points, footnotes and references, Jemma gives Hunter a withering look.‘Breast milk, Lance. For my baby.’Hearing Bobbi snort behind him, he nods, trying to look like he had known that all along. ‘Right. Of course it is.’Bobbi and Hunter babysit, while Fitz and Jemma go on a date.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [anneweaver (camseydavis)](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=anneweaver+%28camseydavis%29).



> HAPPY (late) BIRTHDAY LAURA!! enjoy this nonsensical fluff of your ot4 with a baby.
> 
> the title comes from ed sheeran's 'give me love'.

 

 

‘…and there’s a bottle in the fridge-‘

‘Excellent. What of?’

Raising her eyes from her detailed list of babysitting instructions, complete with bullet points, footnotes and references, Jemma gives Hunter a withering look.

‘Breast milk, Lance. For my _baby_.’

Hearing Bobbi snort behind him, he nods, trying to look like he had known that all along. ‘Right. Of course it is.’

When he and Bobbi had agreed to babysit for her and Fitz, Hunter had been expecting an overanxious, over-prepared Jemma. He had been ready for that, ready to defuse her worries with jokes and smiles, ready to tease and cajole her into leaving the house.

What he had not been expecting, however, and was not in the least prepared for, was to feel like he was about to spend the next four hours undertaking the most important exam of his life.

Chewing on her bottom lip, Jemma dithers. ‘Perhaps we should…’

‘Perhaps,’ Bobbi interrupts, stepping forward to pluck her list from her fingers, ‘you and Fitz should get going. Not every restaurant is going to hold a reservation for six months, you know.’

‘But-‘

‘No buts.’ Bobbi shifts her weight, and Hunter finds his gaze drawn to her hip, where she is balancing Fitz and Jemma’s six month old son. Alfie has one hand in his mouth and the other twined in his girlfriend’s hair. ‘Hunter and I have this completely under control.’

‘But just in case you don’t…’ Fitz appears from the master bedroom of the flat, a jacket over his shoulders and Jemma’s coat in his arms. ‘The number of the restaurant is on the kitchen table,’ he says, helping her into it, ‘along with our phone numbers, and my mum’s and Simmons’ parents, Coulson’s, May’s, the fire department…’

‘Fitz, mate,’ Hunter cuts in. ‘I’m not so British that I don’t know you have to call 911 over here.’

‘What he means,’ Bobbi says, throwing him a glare, ‘is that we’re going to be absolutely fine with Alfie. We’re super spies, what could happen?’

Fitz and Jemma exchange an ominous look that Hunter doesn’t like at all, but when they turn back to look at their son their faces visibly soften.

‘Bye-bye, little man,’ Jemma whispers, stepping forward to brush a kiss on Alfie’s temple. When she steps back, Hunter sees that her eyes have misted over slightly.

‘We’ll be home soon,’ Fitz adds, ruffling his son’s curls. ‘I promise.’

‘Not too soon,’ Bobbi warns, as she ushers them to the door, all but shoving them out of the flat whilst keeping Alfie balanced on her hip. ‘I don’t want to hear a peep out of either of you until at least half past ten. This is your night off, so _enjoy it_!’

And with that rather threatening instruction, she closes the door on their friends and leans back against it, blowing a stray strand of hair off her face. Across the room, she meets Hunter’s eyes and raises an eyebrow.

‘So…’

‘So,’ Hunter agrees, once again finding his gaze drawn to Alfie in her arms, chewing dutifully on his own fist. With his haywire curls and dark amber eyes, he is without a doubt the most perfect project Fitz and Jemma have ever collaborated on. ‘We have a baby.’

 

* * *

 

 

They haven’t even walked to the end of the road before they have both taken their phones out. It is only as her finger hovers over the text she is about to send to Bobbi, reminding her that Alfie’s toy monkey is underneath his pillow, that Jemma notices.

Reluctantly, she sighs and closes the message, before gently resting her hand over Fitz’s phone. He looks up at her and blinks, a fog clearing from behind his eyes.

‘I was just messaging Hunter,’ he explains, nodding towards his phone. ‘I saved an episode of Paw Patrol on the Sky box for Alfie and you know how that relaxes him before he goes to sleep, so I thought I’d better-‘

‘Fitz…’ She tilts her head ruefully at him. ‘Baby on the brain.’

He looks at her for a moment before understanding sinks in, and he screws his eyes tightly shut. ‘Right. Sorry. I just…’

‘I know.’ She waves her phone at him with a guilty grin. ‘I was doing the exact same thing.’

Fitz’s face relaxes and he chuckles, sliding his phone back into his pocket. ‘Our first night out in more than six months and all we can think about-‘

‘-is what’s happening back home,’ Jemma finishes for him. All the parenting books had warned her that the first night away would be hard, but she had never anticipated it feeling like _this_.

Almost as if he had been feeling the exact same thing, Fitz reaches out and takes her hand. ‘So, what can we do?’ he asks softly. ‘To get through the next four hours without picking up our phones?’

With a sigh, Jemma shakes her head. She’s being ridiculous, really, they both are. Alfie is in safe and secure hands and besides, like Fitz said, it was only four hours. Four hours of just the two of them, alone, something that was unlikely to happen again any time soon.

If she and Fitz had to be together then they might as well make the most of it.

‘Well,’ she starts, slowly, ‘I suppose we’ll just have to find something to replace the baby on the brain.’

‘Oh, yeah?’ Fitz waggles an eyebrow at her. ‘Did you have something in mind?’

Stepping forward, Jemma raises herself onto her tiptoes to cup his cheek in her palm and kiss him. The kiss is soft, and slow, and it tastes of a million other kisses, all born of different times and places and feelings.

When she falls away, there is a warmth spreading through her chest that only grows when she sees how Fitz is looking at her.

‘I was thinking…something like that?’

A grin spreads across his face. ‘I could get behind something like that.’

Giving her fingers a gentle squeeze, he holds his arm out into the road to hail down a passing taxi.

 

* * *

 

 

‘It just feels…odd…’

Bobbi’s nose wrinkles up. ‘What’s odd about feeding a baby a bottle?’

Hunter shrugs, as lightly as he can so as not to jog Alfie. Lying back in his arms sucking at the teat of the bottle, the baby is a lot heavier than he had expected. ‘Not the actual feeding. But knowing where the milk came from…’

Tipping her head back, Bobbi laughs out loud. ‘Oh, Hunter, _come on_. That’s where _all_ milk comes from, one way or another.’

‘I know that! I was just saying…’

Still laughing, Bobbi shifts across the sofa and adjusts Alfie’s bib, catching a few stray drops of milk on her finger before they fell to his babygrow. When he looks up at her, his eyes wide and slightly dazed, Hunter knows exactly what the baby is feeling

‘Your mom did the exact same thing, so try and remember that,’ she reminds him, as he sits Alfie up. Patting the baby gently on the back, he hopes that what he is doing is considered ‘burping’. ‘ _And_ your grandmother…’

Hunter shudders. ‘Bob, please. Don’t bring Nana Hunter into this.’

 

* * *

 

 

When the waiter asks them what they want to drink, Jemma pulls a total blank.

After nine months being unable to drink and then a further six barely finding the time to sit down, let alone pour herself a glass of wine, she is feeling practically teetotal.

Noticing this, Fitz takes a quick scan of the menu before pointing to something. Jemma’s eyes widen as the waiter leaves when she reads what he has chosen.

‘Champagne? Rather decadent for a midweek dinner, don’t you think?’

‘Not at all.’ The waiter returns with a bottle and two glasses and Fitz waves him away to pour it himself. ‘I sincerely doubt we’ll drink more than a bottle between us anyway, so why shouldn’t we make that bottle something special?’

He hands her a glass and Jemma takes it, sipping it so that the bubbles fly up her nose. She sighs, briefly closing her eyes as the sensation washes over her. When she opens them, Fitz is watching her across the table.

With the taste of champagne and his kiss still on her lips, Jemma can’t help but feel a wave of love for him, for her best friend, her husband, the man she would cross the universe for, and the father of her child.

At the thought of Alfie, her mind flicks anxiously to her phone, and whether or not she had set the thermometer in his room to exactly 20 degrees, and maybe she ought to ring Bobbi, just to check…

Underneath the table, Fitz’s knee touches hers.

‘Okay?’ he mouths at her, his forehead creased up in concern.

Jemma exhales, imagining her mind like a closed fist. One by one, she pictures the fingers unfurling, letting go of her anxieties one by one.

‘Yeah,’ she whispers, giving him a genuine smile. ‘Always.’

Underneath the table, she shifts her leg so that her foot is able to brush, lightly, against his ankle.

 

* * *

 

 

‘We’ve handled a lot together, right? You and me?’

‘If by ‘a lot’ you mean treason, bullets, aliens and being fugitives of law, then yeah, I think it’s safe to say we’ve handled a lot of stuff together. Why do you ask?’

Holding Alfie at arm’s length away from him, Hunter wishes he had a spare hand free to hold his nose.

‘Because I think changing this dirty nappy is going to be like nothing we’ve ever had to handle before.’

 

* * *

 

 

‘Hmm…toffee?’

‘No.’

‘Butterscotch, then.’

‘Still no.’

Underneath the hand she is holding over his eyes, Jemma feels Fitz blink as he tries to move her fingers apart to see what flavour the ice cream she is feeding him is.

‘Fitz! Stop cheating!’

‘Caramel,’ he decides, beaming as she removes her hand with a sigh. ‘Creamy caramel with a hint of salt.’

Digging the spoon into the ice cream again, Jemma brings it back up to his lips.

‘Excellent deduction, Dr. Fitz.’

 

* * *

 

 

‘There are sticky tabs on either end. If you just press them together, it’ll go neatly in that nappy bag there…’

‘Ah, _shit_.’

‘It doesn’t matter if you mess it up, Hunter, it’s just going in the trash.’

‘No, Bob. _Shit_.’

‘Oh, right.’

 

* * *

 

 

‘I can’t believe we’re doing this.’

‘Me neither. Although, seeing as I’ve never had sex with you in a restaurant bathroom before and I would really, _really_ like to, I would definitely like to believe it.’

‘Be careful with my bra. It’s a front opener, which means you have to open it-‘

He cuts her off with a kiss to her clavicle. ‘Jemma. Do you really think that _after all this time_ I do not know every single one of your bras by heart?’

 

* * *

 

 

Somehow, they have both ended up in Alfie’s bedroom, Bobbi sitting curled up on the rocking chair with the baby quietly snoring in her arms, and Hunter at her feet, leaning back against her leg.

He has to wonder if this is how Fitz and Jemma spent those early nights with their son, the nights none of their friends had been able to properly reach them because they had fallen so suddenly and fiercely in love with this new, tiny person who was half of him and half of her.

He wonders, for a brief moment, what the intensity of that love must feel like.

Abruptly, like she had just been reading his mind, Bobbi nudges him with her foot. ‘Do you ever think about having a baby?’

He cocks his head to one side, pretending to consider. ‘I think I had a nightmare about it once, after hearing what Simmons went through. But other than that…’

This time, Bobbi’s nudge feels more like a kick to the back of his neck. ‘ _Not_ what I meant, Hunter.’

He spins around and catches her foot, holding it in his hand. Softly, he rubs his thumb across its sole. ‘I know what you meant, Bob.’

Sitting above him, with Alfie’s glowing moon night-light behind her head, she looks almost ethereal as she bites her lip at him. ‘And?’

Shifting, Hunter turns so that he is leaning his elbow on the seat of the chair.

‘I’d be lying,’ he admits, ‘if I said I hadn’t. Especially this past year. I was just never sure if it was something you wanted-‘

He is broken off by Alfie, who starts suddenly in Bobbi’s arms and gives a plaintive wail. Quickly, while Bobbi resumes her rocking and soothing murmurs for him, Hunter dives underneath the cot to retrieve the soft toy monkey. As soon as he tucks it into the crook of Bobbi’s arm next to him, Alfie’s cries stutter and he falls quiet again.

‘It’s not like I think about it all the time,’ Bobbi says, her voice lowered as she watches the baby’s sleeping face, ‘but, yeah, like you, I’ve thought about it this year. Watching Jemma become a mom and getting to meet this little guy…’

Her fingers flutter through Alfie’s curls, barely making him stir.

‘Do you think that we’d be any good at it?’ she asks, her voice barely a whisper. ‘Being parents?’

Hunter shrugs. ‘Oh, I dunno,’ he says softly, ‘we’ve got through tonight alright, haven’t we?’

Bobbi snorts. ‘Don’t speak too soon. Fitz and Jemma aren’t back yet.’

‘God, Bob, don’t say that.’

He lets his head fall back against her leg, stroking her knee as she rocks. A quiet peace has descended over the room, a warm, comfortable peace that feels like home. Hunter decides that if this is what having a baby means, then he could definitely get used to it.

‘What do you think they’d be like?’ Bobbi questions. ‘Our baby?’

Turning around, he kneels up against the chair, so that they are almost face to face.

‘When we have a baby,’ he vows, ‘they’re going to be the cutest kid this world has ever seen.’

Bobbi raises one eyebrow. ‘When?’

Nodding, Hunter manoeuvres himself across Alfie carefully, so that he can press his lips to hers without waking the baby.

‘Yeah,’ he murmurs between kisses. ‘When.’

 

* * *

 

 

‘I love you.’

Sitting on the backseat of a taxi with her arm slung around Fitz’s shoulders and her legs draped over his lap, with her body still humming and her heart still thumping so against her ribcage, the words all but tumble out of Jemma’s mouth.

Fitz turns to her, a little in surprise. ‘Yeah. I love you too.’

Cupping his face in her hands, she forces him to look her in the eye. ‘I love you _so much_.’

‘What is this?’ he teases. ‘A competition?’

It takes all of Jemma’s strength to bite back the reply ‘isn’t it always?’, but she manages it. Instead, she pulls herself closer to him, straining under the seatbelt until she can loop her arms properly around his neck. This close up, she can smell the champagne and ice cream still on his breath, mingling with the warm, comfortable scent she has come to think of as _home_.

‘I just really wanted to say it,’ she confesses, brushing the top of her head against his chin. ‘I felt like these past few months I’ve been saying it to Alfie far more than I’ve been saying it to you. I didn’t want you to feel like I’d used it all up on him, you know? Because I always love you, so, _so_ much.’

In the half lit dark of the taxi, she can’t quite make out the expression on Fitz’s face, but the way he leans forward almost immediately to kiss her speaks for itself. Jemma closes her eyes as his hands dig into her waist and his lips caress hers in a pattern so familiar it feels like breathing.

‘You do tell me, you know.’ he murmurs against her mouth, his breath hot and a little sticky.

Sucking lightly against his bottom lip, she thinks absently about what the taxi driver must be thinking, to have them sitting practically on top of each other and making out like teenagers in his cab.

‘Hmm?’

‘You do tell me,’ Fitz repeats, his voice barely a whisper as he pulls back from the kiss far enough to rest his forehead against hers.

The taxi drives past a lamp post, momentarily lighting up the inside of the car, and in that moment Jemma sees the depth of love reflecting in his eyes.

‘I hear you say it every time you call my name.’

 

* * *

 

 

It is ten thirty two when the front door opens, and, remembering the sleeping baby in the next room, Hunter holds himself back from applauding Jemma’s punctuality. Instead, he satisfies himself with giving the returning parents a beaming grin and a thumbs up from the sofa.

‘Right on schedule, I see,’ he remarks with a wink.

‘Oh, hush,’ Jemma retorts, but there is a shine to her eyes as she says it. Coming into the flat behind her, Fitz’s cheeks are flushed and there is a residual grin to his face that has to make Hunter wonder exactly what kind of a night the two of them had had.

‘Has everything been okay?’ Fitz asks, his eyes quickly scanning the room, as if he had been expecting to return to fire and brimstone and wailing (either from the baby or Hunter).

‘Everything has been absolutely fine,’ Bobbi assures him, rising from the sofa. On her way up, her fingers trail up Hunter’s leg. ‘Alfie’s sleeping, and he’s been an absolute angel all night long.’

Hunter thinks back to the three times the baby had woken, screaming, over the last three hours, and decides that _angelic_ certainly isn’t the word he would use to describe him.

But the assertion seems to satisfy Jemma, who puffs out her chest and drops her bag and coat on the floor, before making a beeline across the flat to Alfie’s room. Bobbi follows her, catching her hand and leaning in close to murmur as they step in to check on the baby.

Heaving himself up from the sofa, Hunter makes his way across to clap Fitz on the back as he unpacks his pockets.

‘Mate, you owe me.’

Fitz nods, vaguely, his eyes trained on Alfie’s door where Jemma’s soft voice can be heard soothing their son. The look on his face is so dopey that Hunter would be tempted to tease him about it if he didn’t know that he made the exact same face while looking at Bobbi.

‘Yeah, yeah, of course we do.’ He picks up his wallet from the table, fumbling through for notes. ‘What’s the going rate for babysitting these days? $10 an hour?’

‘I was thinking,’ Hunter says casually, ‘something more like $300,000?’

Fitz just about chokes, spinning around to look at him. ‘I _beg_ your pardon?’

Hunter shrugs. ‘Well, isn’t that how much they say it costs to have a baby in this day and age?’

He watches the realisation dawn over his friend’s face, and suddenly Fitz is grinning again, reaching out to pat him on the shoulder. He doesn’t say anything, but then again, he doesn’t really have to. His smile says it all.

They pull apart as the girls leave Alfie’s room, closing the door softly behind them.

‘Is he-‘

‘Fast asleep,’ Jemma says, crossing the room to tuck herself under Fitz’s arm. ‘Safe and sound.’

‘Not that he was ever going to be anything else,’ Bobbi says, throwing her a pointed look, to which Jemma doesn’t respond; rather, she just rolls her eyes with a smile and lolls back onto Fitz.

‘Thank you both,’ she says, with a sigh. ‘Truly. Tonight was wonderful.’

The way she and Fitz can’t quite look at each other without blushing like newlyweds tells Hunter that she isn’t joking.

They see them to the door to say goodbye. Just as Jemma is about to close the door, he catches Fitz’s eye over her head. Fitz winks at him, before quickly mouthing a silent _good luck_. In response, Hunter gives him a small salute, which Jemma sees and frowns at. No doubt she will know everything in a minute or two, but in that moment Hunter can’t quite bring himself to care.

If Bobbi Morse was willing to have a baby with him, then that was something he wanted the whole world to know.

As soon as the door closes, he turns to her. ‘So.’

Bobbi smirks at him, spinning around so that they are nose to nose in the corridor. ‘ _So_.’

‘Want to make a baby?’

He doesn’t even see the kiss coming, one moment they are apart and then next her fingers are gripping his collar to bring him closer and their lips are pressed together so hard he can taste her.

‘I thought,’ Bobbi whispers, ‘that you’d never ask.’

Not letting go of his collar, she tugs, leading him away from Fitz and Simmons’ home towards the promise of finding their own.

 

 


End file.
